Fellowships
Overview:
The Feeney Fellowships are awarded annually to Birmingham-based individuals in the arts, heritage or open spaces sectors. We usually appoint one Fellow per year, but special considerations can be made in years with high numbers of exceptional applicants. Each Fellow receives a bursary of up to £5,000.
Support from the Feeney Fellowship has been amazing, and the significant funding has given me a great opportunity to develop creatively as well as increased confidence in my practice going forward. The application process was a wholly positive and the interview incrediblyencouraging. The secretary, Katie Banks has been supportive throughout the duration of the funding period making studio visits and approving changes to my initial proposal where necessary. This period has been extremely useful for myself in clarifying ideas going forward in my personal practice and it has been a privilege be supported by the John Feeney Charitable Trust.
Thank you so much, you have made a huge difference helping create momentum which I hope to build upon in the very near future!
Ian Andrews, 2023 Fellow
The objective of our Fellowships strand is to enable you to make progress in your work or practice, supporting you to increase your skills, knowledge, networks and expertise, all with the aim of advancing your career journey. The outcome that interests us most is seeing the clear development in you as an individual.
The Fellowships are intended to support a step change or a pivot along someone’s already established career trajectory, rather than providing support for someone to establish a career in their chosen sector. (We are currently exploring different routes and future funding strands which will enable us to offer support for people at earlier stages of their career.)
As part of the application process, we invite you to propose a programme of activity that you will carry out which will be transformative in some way, and will send your career in an exciting, rewarding new direction. What that transformation looks like will be unique to you and to your work or practice.
The programme you propose should be carefully thought-out and tailored to give you opportunities to connect with inspiring outside influences and to learn from the experiences of others. It should give you the chance to take some risks and to drive an ambitious vision for your career. It should reflect what you need in order to progress from where you are now towards where you’d like your career to go next.
Some indicative examples include:
You are a dancer and you want to make and present your own work more often — so you plan a nine-month period of mentorship with a reputable British choreographer who leads their own company, which helps you develop some of the creative skills and business skills you need
You are a visual artist who specialises in painting, now looking to expand your skills working with new media — so you devise a training plan focusing on VR and AR systems with a leading AI company in the UK, and bi-monthly Zoom mentoring sessions with a digital artist in Italy
You are a textile conservator looking to find ways to engage the public more with the work you do, especially young people who might be the conservators of the future — so you consult a network of conservators and Learning and Participation specialists at institutions across the UK with a view to developing a workshop series and digital resources for a pilot schools project
You are a horticulturalist and you want to embed biodiversity activities at the heart of your practice — so you organise visits to community gardens and historic collections across the UK, and a series of consultations with the head gardeners at each site, using what you learn to refine your approach and understanding of how best to involve the communities in your area
The strongest applications are usually the ones where applicants have had the chance to do some groundwork prior to submission. This sometimes involves discussing and agreeing upon personalised programmes of work with named mentors or experts (as opposed to identifying off-the-shelf training opportunities) — or involves sourcing accurate quoted rates for goods or services (as opposed to providing provisional estimates).
Who can apply:
The Fellowships programme is for individuals living in Birmingham whose work or practice sits within Birmingham’s arts, heritage or open spaces sectors. (Organisations — click here for information on our Commissions and Grants.)
Applicants will be expected to have had a minimum of three years’ professional experience working or practising within their relevant sector. (Those three years of experience do not include time spent in higher or further education.)
The Fellowships are primarily geared towards supporting the development of freelancers, rather than individuals who are in full-time salaried positions within organisations. (We may consider applications from individuals in full-time employment, but we would recommend contacting us first before you submit such an application.)
Timeframe:
Application Process for Fellowships opens — 1st July at 10am
Application Process for Fellowships closes — 30th September at 5pm
Receipt of all applications for Fellowships will be acknowledged by 3rd October.
Trustees meet in November to consider applications for Fellowships. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to interview by a panel of Feeney Trustees, who will make awards based on the likely value of the proposal to the individual as well as its contribution to the development of the arts, heritage or open spaces sectors in Birmingham.
All applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application no later than 5pm on 30th November. Due to our limited capacity, we will be unable to provide detailed feedback on unsuccessful applications.
Apply for a Fellowship
To apply, you need to provide us with the following:
A completed copy of our Application Form (Microsoft Word template)
OR
a video/audio recording (max. 10 minutes in length) in which you provide the information requested on Pages 1—3 of the Application Form
A completed copy of the Income and Expenditure Budget Template for your proposed Fellowship activity (Microsoft Excel template)
A completed Contact Information Form (Microsoft Word template)
Samples to demonstrate your work or practice (either with weblinks or with files sent via WeTransfer)
Please return these documents to the Applications mailbox.
Applicants will receive an auto-response to confirm that their applications have been safely received. If you do not receive an automated acknowledgement, please contact the Trust Administrator for guidance.
'My time as a Feeney Fellow has been punctuated by the ructions of the pandemic. Throughout that time, when I have been able my Fellowship has supported me to feed my practice through online and, when possible, in person skill development and through the support of a mentor. During periods of intense isolation and distance from my usual collaborative practice, this kept me connected to my artistic process and growing. The Fellowship also provides a ray of hope: I have been able to carry over the funds intended for travel; that future adventure has been a source of comfort. The last year has certainly provided ample opportunity for reflection on purpose, aims and practice - and the Feeney Trust has enabled this to have focus and direction despite the maelstrom.'
Kate Deright, 2019 Fellow
What we can fund
Proposals must include a budget (submitted using our Budget template, downloadable above), which demonstrates realistic costs for work, goods or services such as:
some cost recovery for your own time
mentoring, coaching, training, consultations from other people
travel, accommodation and related expenses
materials
capital equipment (see note below)
memberships and subscriptions
admission costs for venues, conferences, etc.
You should ensure that you pay yourself and other people fairly and appropriately for any work or time linked to your/their involvement in the proposed Fellowship activity. Where relevant, you should use recognised professional guidance on rates of pay as the basis for calculations.
Where the cost of items of capital equipment is included, this needs to be demonstrably linked to the activity in question. While we appreciate that investment in equipment is often essential to the delivery of some activities, contribution to the costs of long-term assets (such as computers, projectors, lighting and sound equipment, or vehicles) should form no more than 30% of your overall budget.
What we can’t fund
Fellowships will not be awarded to support the following:
international travel — unless this is vital to your development, and your proposed outcomes cannot be achieved via Zoom (or similar)
the costs of further of higher education courses or training
business start-ups
production costs of an exhibition, performance or artwork.
Acknowledgment and Reporting
Fellowships should normally be completed within one year of the award.
Feeney Fellows will be required to write an end-of-activity report on their project, and to agree that their report and any relevant photographs or other media can be published on the Trust’s website, and elsewhere, with appropriate image crediting.
Awards will be disbursed in two instalments, with a final £100 held back until an end-of-activity report has been received.
During and beyond the activity period, successful applicants must ensure that any publicity regarding the funding or associated work uses the credit:— ‘supported by The John Feeney Charitable Trust’.
The Trust has accounts on Facebook, X/Twitter and Instagram, and we encourage funding recipients to like, follow and tag the Trust in any social media posts in relation to their Fellowship activity.
A copy of the Trust’s logo can be downloaded for use on digital and printed promotional materials.
Getting the fellowship, gave me the confidence I needed to apply for other opportunities and off of this, I positively put together a proposal for the arts & heritage meeting point commission where I am working with Middleport Pottery. The project draws inspiration from Middleport Pottery’s archive of Victorian jelly moulds and examines the history of jelly, blancmange and the history of the moulds, drawing parallels between cooking and craft. The project culminates in a Victorian Tea Party held in the grounds of Middleport Pottery.
I have also been learning new skills, which will allow me to create new and different objects in my work. Gaining new skills in furniture restoration and upholstery has enabled me to rediscover my processes in my practice.
The Feeney fellowship has enabled me to extend my network and connect with other prominent artists, curators and thinkers.
Terms and Conditions
Funding from the John Feeney Charitable Trust is offered on the following terms:
You will acknowledge receipt of the grant and confirm you understand that the grant is restricted to use for the Fellowship activity as described in your application and should not be used for any other expenditure or purpose.
Any surplus funds not required for the approved purpose are to be refunded to us.
We reserve the right to withhold funds or to be refunded if we believe you have supplied false information or you become insolvent or bankrupt;
You agree that we may use your name and image in our publicity material and a link may be included on our website to your website if you have one;
You will acknowledge the grant in any publicity about the activity for which the grant is made and will use the Trust’s logo in all relevant digital and printed materials.